EastStandLower
Well-Known Member
I met Jonesy on the summer NYC pre season tour, he started The MCFC NY home in the Mad Hatter on 3rd Ave in New York.
He's quite a character and after a recent visit to Manchester he blogged this on the Hatters forum.
Had me laughing like a drain!
http://www.madhattersaloonnyc.com/m...14&t=483&sid=a9a877fb09b31d1f7a5763dfde846ead
He's quite a character and after a recent visit to Manchester he blogged this on the Hatters forum.
Had me laughing like a drain!
http://www.madhattersaloonnyc.com/m...14&t=483&sid=a9a877fb09b31d1f7a5763dfde846ead
Just exactly how dog shit ends up on the floor in Terminal 3 of Ringway airport is anyones guess. That it found its way onto on my Suede Redwings, I can only put down to Jet Lag having spent the whole night stuffed between 2 enormous snoring farting Texans on Continental flight 20 from Newark. A sign of things to come? I asked myself as I drudge over to the fake expresso bar in the terminals lounge as I wait for my mate Dermo to show up. "Chocolate sprinkles"? Yells the orange tanned, purple coiffed, gold chain festooned, fluorescent white toothed 50 something lady behind the counter, violently shaking me from my torpor. "Scuze me"? I answer blearily, ''Chocolate Sprinkles for your Cappachin-chin?" she asks in a cheery tone as fake as everything else seems to be in this authentic Tuscan Style Cappaccino bar. "No love, just regular coffee please", But you asked for Coffee", she barks, the cheeriness quickly being replaced by a more ominous tone, designed to let everyone else in the immediate vicinity know she is not in the mood to be pissed about. " Err, Yeah,.. coffee... not er...Capaccino" I mumble, suddenly realizing how long I had been out of Manchester where the customer is always dead wrong and rapidly put in their place for having the fucking Gaul to think otherwise. "THIS, is a Cap-pa-cci-no bar'", she shouts, as if talking to a particularly nasty retarded foreign child whilst violently thrusting a finger toward the sign above, "WHEN, you ask for coffee in a Cap-pa-cci-no bar it means cappaccino. By now all traces of cheeriness are left way behind when things were fresh and new between us. "What do you ask for when you want coffee"? I ask in all innocence, She then thrusts her other carrot coloured arm in the direction of the authentic Tuscan bistro chalk board and bellows something that sounds like "Kenyan Disperante Angelica". Aware of the other early morning sleepless zombies listlessly forming a line behind me and the mood change the lack of Kenyan Disperante Angelica is beggining to have on them, I just say yeah fine, Chocolate sprinkles it is.
I expect the rain would have been bouncing 18 inches off the ground had it not been for the fact it was coming in sideways with raindrops the size of fried eggs. "Jesus Jozz, did you swallow a 4kin wardrobe you fat twat? Says a smirking 5 foot 5 lump of drowned Rat with a face as familiar as when we were Kids playing football in Plant Hill Park nearly 50 years ago. "When was the last time YOU saw your dick with out a hand mirror Stumpy"? Came my reposte. We laugh, shake hands and the little bastard crushes my Ribs with the hug that follows. My Mate Dermo, my oldest mate, and the only person who still calls me Jozz after 30 odd years of me last hearing it. He still looks well for 55, a triple bypass, divorce and 40 woodbines a day. We climb in his tiny euro box and head off for some wakey-wakey egg and bacey around the corner from an early doors boozer in Middleton. After a healthy discourse of how City will always be shit and why United are the most foul franchise on the globe, we go to said early doors boozer. Stevie Rigg, Cousins Billy and Roley, Irish Jack, Tommy the painter, Moggsey and some guy who appears to have been desceased, and not too recently by the smell of things, are all sitting in the same chairs they were last time I saw them 3 Years ago like guests to Miss Favershams wedding. That they weren't covered in cobwebs was mildly surprising."Alright Jonesey, not seen yer for are while, are you graftin"? Ask's Cousin Bill, "Ows yer Mam"? Asks Cousin Roly, barely looking up from the racing page. Now a persons family members under normal circumstances would probably be expected to know if their cousin had been away for close to 40 years. Mine however, are afforded a pass as at last count there were about 90 odd first cousins not to mention their kids who at this point are moving well into the 300's. I am then brought up to date with who is dead, who is about to die, who's inside, who died inside and who got out and went back in again or died, who's on the run and who died on the run. I ask if anyone had won the lottery, found a Wallet, been given change of a tenner for a fiver, collected 200 pounds on the way past go, or has had any form of good luck visit them in the last 10 years. As a group they immediately brighten considerably. "Terry McGrath has had a good result" offers Stevie, "He was awarded 150 Grand"! Awarded?" I enquire wondering if they now give out Nobel prizes to nasty little bastards. "Yeah it turns out he got Asbestosis from all those years lagging pipes at the ICI. Lucky bleeder practically lives in Spain with a couple darlings who wheel him around all day, and hasn't worked since". "Hows his breathing"? I ask, "Oh, well yeah, he cant really breath, in fact it sounds like bagpipes when he CAN manage a blow, and he has to be careful with them Oxygen tanks when he smokes, still 150 Grand can't be sniffed at." Funny, I was thinking that was all he probably could do. I leave it there, it wouldn't be fair to shatter their dream of contracting Mesothelioma.
Opiates, Lunatic Shagging, Sky Diving, Chesters Mild, Toblerones, Crack and Pontrefact Cakes, are ALL highly addictive and ALL, and I speak from experience here, (if you count my rebound relationship after my first Marriage ended, the Morphine they shot me up with after my heart attack and a rather cloudy memory of 6 months in Amsterdam when still in my 20's) come a very distant 2nd to Hollands of Baxendales Steak Puddings, Chips, Mushy Peas and gravy. If they'd a had this in Edinborough, Trainspotting would have had a very different ending, and they would have had to replace Ewan McGreggor, Johnnie Lee Miller and Robert Carlysle with Cyril Smith, Bernard Manning and Pavarotti. After 3 long years, its finally time for me to get my fix. I am of the opinion that if you stick this meal on any French menu and give it a name that suggests it came from a ducks arse, accompany it with a Ben Shaws 2010 Dand-e-lyon et Burdeux and you will have the culinery world sitting on its ear. Until that day, the snobbish phillistines around the world will never know of its truly soaring majesty over all else in the fast food realm. In the late 40's and early 50's in order to drum up tourism, a Morris Dancing festival in Oldham was staged annually. Among the various Brass bands that played, and traction engines that jostled for relevence, the highlight was 7 local Virgins (usually the same 7 seriously large birds from Bury that life long Foriegn Legionaires on a steady diet of oysters and Blueys wouldn't touch) would eat as many of these delicacys as possible in a 3 day Gorgy. The crescendo would end in wild, trance like orgasmic behaviour that would ultimately cause them to disrobe each other in a sexual frenzy and eventually, one by one, they would all drop their chips. Sadly,when the dust settled it appears to have had the opposite affect with all and sundry vowing never to return to witness something as fucking boring as 7 fat tarts eating themselves into a coma, while a bunch of dopey fuckers with bells on their knees skip round and belt each other with sticks (though the latter has recently made a comeback in Droylesdon). They flocked instead to Blackpool where they could marvel at the latest craze, Sticks of Rock where the name of the Town ran right through! Couple this with the advent of the coloured light bulb and the famous Tower overlooking a sea of shite. There was no way they could compete and the Oldham Pudding festival soon faded into the annals of Lancashire myth and legend along with that famous pier in Wigan and the lesser known running of the ferrets in Bolton. I inhale the meal, knowing that in a week I will probably only have enough time to do another 12 of these before my return flight back to a steak puddingless America and my Cardiologist. "Come on Dermo, time to go see my Old Ma, Kate".
After banging on the door for what appeared to be an hour my Mother finally answers, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" She enquires from the upturned waist high letter box before noticing my robust appearence, "Jesus Lad, your not denying your self much are you? Is that you too Dermo? She observes from a crouching position, Ows yer Mam? Come in love, d'ya have time for a cuppa? Stick the kettle on for me and Dermo will you son"? Ahh home at last. I drag my siutcase into a living room hotter than Chernobyl in its heyday. I fear if I spend much time in here I may just spontaneously combust, grow tomatoes in my drawers or succomb to radiation sickness, Hmmmm, how much would I be awarded I wonder.
Seeing as our ever diligent keeper of the BMOTS Game Calendar, Grande Solo, always starts the Game day specifics with Manchester City V - I have Ballsed up my trip and it seems I wont be paying Eastlands a visit this time out as we are playing Fulham AWAY. I find out from Cousin Roley it will however be playing live on the Big Screen in the Duke of Wellington. Blackleys answer to Ken Keyseys Cuckoos Nest, "The Juke" comes complete with a cast of characters and lunatics of all varieties and medication is supplied by none other than Manchesters greatest contributor to facial re-alignment and the steady decline of its air quality, Joeseph Holts' Brewery.
I get in kind of early to get a good seat in "The Room" which surprisingly is full of reds if the standard of dental work and the inability to walk upright is to be engaged as a barometer. Two old mates of the family, Jimmy D and Johnny P spot me and proceed to go through every fat joke in their burgeoning catologue. This from a guy with 1 tooth and an ever present balaclava and the other with a Budgie jacket, wandering eye and winkle pickers. They have obviously forgotten my propencity for friendly banter, however they are rapidly re-introduced and quickly make their way scurrying to the mirror in the sinus clearing confines of the Jukes fine Victorian Toilet, replete with distinctive Northern working class odours and toilet paper apparently made from recycled Christmas cards. The first half of the game is unbelievable stuff apart from the comments of Mongaloid reds who seem to be growing in number since I came in. The word soon gets around that the well fed Tatooless stranger with 2 socks and whitish teeth is non other than that guy who was in the Evening News a few weeks ago for having started The MCFC NY home in the Mad Hatter on 3rd Ave in New York. Great reverence is afforded me as the tipping point of recognition is acheived. "OO"? Loudly enquires a guy with "Norma" tattooed on his neck, I prey there is an "L" hiding beneath the collar of his finely tailored Donkey Jacket. He is only one of a number of Risley regulars staring my way from the bar. One of them, I kid you not, has fresh blood pumping out of a 5 inch gash in the back of his Skinhead which apparantly goes unnoticed by everyone in the place but me. A few others start to look my way and I start to regret the severity of my earlier verbal sparring with Johnnie and Jimmy. I go to the bar and order a fresh Pint of Holts' milk of amnesia, when a 5 foot 6 cube of really poor quality tattoos walks mencingly over to me and screams the following, "If my brother tells you to sing a fucking song, you fucking sing one, RIGHT? Puzzled by this bewildered souls request I ask "Come again?'' This only seems to infuriate this talking slab of malevolence even further, "Our Dad would have been 76 today if he was still alive, so you better sing, ****! Now I have been out of town for a good few years and would be the first to admit I had definitly lost my edge a while back, but to be called a **** in a pub that probably held no less than 30 unknown cousins as future witnesses, would not have made for an honourable story about my particular branch of the family unless my ultimate goal was for all to be branded as a shower of cowards and shitbags. I may have lost my edge, but my wits had most definitley been sharpened whilst in Exile. A crudely drawn shamrock took pride of place between a dagger and what I can only assume was a Leopard or an extremely annoyed Dalmation on Barney Rubbles left arm. Still sideways on, so as not to offer an easy route to the knackers, I lean in only inches from the guys hideous kite........
I'LL TELL ME MA WHEN I GO HOME
THE BOYS WONT LEAVE THE GIRLS ALONE,
THEY PULL ME HAIR AND STOLE ME COMB
BUT THATS ALRIGHT TILL I GO HOME.
SHE IS HANDSOME, SHE IS PRETTY,
SHE IS THE BELLE OF BELFAST CITY,
SHE COME A COURTING ONE TWO THREE
PLEASE WONT YA TELL ME WHO IS SHE......
By the 2nd line he is smiling, stamping his feet and clapping his hands, like a simpleton and his first sighting of a pin ball machine. By the 2nd verse I've got them all at it. 2 songs later and I'm getting requests, several pints of Joey Holts are starting to pile up as I really start to loosen up and go for it with the full Dubliners catalogue for back up. By the time I finish up with the Fields of Afton Rye/ Peggy Gordon medely, there isn't a dry eye in the House and my Moneys no good. I've learnt a lot of stuff since leaving Manchester in the 70's, but these songs, learnt in many an Irish bar down the years, have probably saved me a trip to casualty in several buckets on more than one occaision. I totally miss the 2nd half of the Game, but I now know what it is to sacrifice for ones art.
My Elder brother Tom has lived in Blackpool for about 30 odd years now. A one time piss head womanising philanderer, he is now thinking of taking it up again. He is still the funniest human being on the face of the Planet and spending time with him over in his adopted seaside home, is always high up on my favourite things to do list. I tell him of my exploits the day before in the Duke of Wellington and he confirms my suspiscions, Slabbo was in fact married to our cousin Joyce, and he regularly asks my brother Tom on his frequent trips over to see my Ma, even though he has never met me, how I'm doing in America. We piss ourselves laughing, you just couldn't make this shite up. I could spend hours talking about my insanely funny Brother, but I could never do him the justice it would require to convince you. A lifelong Blue, responsible for my Blue allegiance, my taste in music, love of Boxing and slightly slanted sense of Milliganesque humour. Over several bottles of Pinot Noir, we talk about the Blues at length. His one regret is that we will never be the same, never be the underdog people root for, we will never win anything the way it used to be won way back when. He fears that all the things we have loathed and have repulsed us about united, will now also become common place for us. He is deeply saddened that HIS Manchester City is dissappearing, never to return. I told him that WE have to make sure it doesn't and that no matter how much we get away from who we were in the Good Old, Bad Old days, the one constant must be the fans, that blend of loyalty, passion, patience, self depricating gallows humour and lunacy that make us unique and sets the CITY FAN apart from the rest. Its way more than just a football club, the vast majority of us carry it around in our hearts all our lives. I am proud to be a City fan and count myself lucky to be in such a wonderfully rich cast of characters and eccentrics that make up the truly great fans and supporters of MCFC. My pitch is heartfelt passionate and sincere and I feel had I delivered it during the revolution, The US would still be ours.
Little did I know that the evil bastard recorded everything I said on his phone and played it back over the speakers in the crowded boozer full of cousins the next day. I'm pretty sure we have different Fathers.